---
title: “But it is not so, nor it was not so,” said Mr. Fox. — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “But it is not so, nor it was not so,” said Mr. Fox. Who acts: it, Mr. Fox. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Be Bold, Be Bold., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Be Bold, Be Bold., sentence 1

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“But it is not so, nor it was not so,” said Mr. Fox.

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**Who acts:** it, Mr. Fox · **What happens:** not be, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Be Bold, Be Bold.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (it, Mr. Fox), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg7439:32:1
# text = “But it is not so, nor it was not so,” said Mr. Fox.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	so	so	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	12	cc	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	so	so	ADV	RB	_	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	Mr.	Mr.	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	compound	_	_
17	Fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | present | it |  |  |  |  | so *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | past | it |  |  |  |  | so *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Mr. Fox |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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